


Without You

by Skullszeyes



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Confusion, Dark Past, Depression, Dissociation, Dreams, Friendship, Gen, Hurt Ventus (Kingdom Hearts), Light Angst, Past Lives, Randomness, Vanitas Swears (Kingdom Hearts)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22540288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skullszeyes/pseuds/Skullszeyes
Summary: Ventus wonders where his darkness is.
Relationships: Vanitas & Ventus (Kingdom Hearts)
Kudos: 24





	Without You

**Author's Note:**

> I did write a fanfic before this one with Vanitas and Ventus, but I didn't like it. LOL. So I had to delete it, and then I wrote this, and I was thinking of depression and the feeling of depression, or the confusion of what it feels like, as if there's always this emptiness to it, and you're searching for a way to fill up that emptiness. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Comments and/or Kudo's are appreciated.

He hadn’t traveled in the dark without anyone before, except it wasn’t the same darkness as he had known before. He recalled the numbing in his body while his hands shook. There was something about the dark that reminded him of the way fear stretched and pulled. Uncomfortable. Where would his feet land, his hands feel for the walls, his eyes on nothing, and not knowing who was with him or if he was alone.

Maybe that was also his fear.

Being alone.

Maybe he should figure out how to protect himself from those moments. When all he wanted to do was curl in his body, and fade away from the world. He didn’t really like it, those empty thoughts echoing in the back of his mind.

He gave them way too much meaning for the existence he lives now.

Ventus held his phone, but he never texted anyone, he never phoned anyone, and when anyone would, he’d ignore them.

There was always something in the dark that called his name. Whispered at him, and it sometimes yelled. He’d forget who it was, and who they were to him. And there were days when he knew who they were, and why they were there.

He was too weak to reach his hand and grasp them for help. He was too weak to open his mouth, and hope they can hear the crackling of his voice.

It knew his weak spots.

It dug inside, and with all that light, it continued to dig, and dig, and dig…

What did it want from him?

_ What do you want from me? _

“Are you lost?”

Ventus raised his eyes while standing in the darkness. He could hardly see their figure where he stood. A faint outline, but he turned his eyes to the darkness at his feet.

“I don’t know…” 

“You seem lost,” the voice spoke, a familiar tone, deep and sincere. He should know who that is, but he doesn’t.

_ Why can’t I remember? _

It’s a suffocating, overwhelming experience. He’s not entirely sure when it started, but sleeping helped him when he didn’t want to deal with those feelings. The hours dragged too long, all of it dreary and plain, and his body weighed him down while his friends spoke to him. Their words would also have weight, they’d drain away as he found himself inside the darkness, wandering like a lost wounded child.

“I am…” Ventus replied. He always thought darkness had an acrid smell. There was no smell to it. Nothing to remind others of what it was. It was emptiness, it crept up on people who knew nothing of its effect, and said hello to the ones who did. A gradual aching process as if the bones aged and cracked under the youthful skin.

“I can feel it,” the darkness whispers, “your fear is as tangible as your body, as placid as your anger that you no longer have, all of it has been ripped out of you, cut and seared shut.”

Is that what happened to him? He can hardly recall the procedure of when he was left gasping on his knees, and the heat of that afternoon sun was all he could feel while a shadow was draped over him. He didn’t even know what it was until the pain spiked across his entire being. A first for everything, even if it wasn’t his first.

“What...am I?”

The darkness leaned close, and Ventus felt the cold fingers touch his chin, and he knew it was smiling in a sickly manner as it said, “You are what remains. You are the light that is given birth to everything, but because of that, your darkness had also been pulled from you, scraped out like entrails before your eyes, and it laid waste to what you desire. You cannot have light without darkness, and darkness without light, chaos will try to balance it out.”

“Then...what am I without it?” Ventus asked, raising his eyes to the darkness, to the feeling of being close to something that wasn’t there.

“You are numb…” 

Ventus blinked, and he was no longer staring at the darkness, but at two golden eyes. The warmth of the afternoon leaked in from the curtains that covered his windows, but he was sitting up, a blanket wrapped around him.

“What?” Ventus asked, blinking.

“I said, you’re numb,” Vanitas answered, glaring at him as he let go of his chin. He had been standing in front of him, bent slightly to look Ventus in the eyes. “You’ve been mumbling since I got back…”

Ventus tugged the blanket tighter around his body as Vanitas took off his sweater. “I don’t...know what you’re talking about.”

Vanitas scoffed as he turned around, arms crossed. He always wore a dissatisfied expression, like he seen something more when he stared at him, as if he were bare. 

“Nevermind, you’re probably just tired,” Vanitas said, lying down on the bed that was against the window. “Come on, don’t just sit there.”

Ventus laid back, letting Vanitas take the blanket so he could cover himself up.

“Is something wrong with me?”

“No,” Vanitas wrapped an arm around Ventus and pulled him closer, “you’re just a little weird, that’s all.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Fine, you keep going on about darkness and light, but does it really fucking matter at this point?” 

“I think it matters.”

“Well, then tell me, why does it matter?”

_ I was cut in two. _ “I’m light, and without darkness, I’m incomplete…that’s what bothers me. I have these dreams and something is being teared out of me, and it has no form, nothing...it’s visceral, bloody, sick, smells strong like ammonia, then after awhile, it begins to take form. Misshapen, disturbing, until it speaks...and it doesn’t sound like me, but it is me, because it was a part of who I am. It was cut out of me.”

“Does it want to go back?” Vanitas asked.

“I think so, it feels loneliness, emptiness, and it’s angry because of it, and it blames me for that pain it goes through,” Ventus reached up and wiped away a tear from his cheek, “I tried to look for it in the darkness because that’s what it is. I can’t seem to find it, not exactly, I think it wants to come back to me though, it speaks to me sometimes, far away...like a whisper.”

Vanitas leaned up and stared at Ventus while he looked at the ceiling. “Maybe its scared of you, maybe it thinks that if it goes back, you’ll destroy it.”

Ventus shook his head, “No, we’re the same, I don’t want it to be destroyed, I want it to come back to me.”

Vanitas held Ventus, and whispered, “Then let it come back.”

Ventus curled his fingers in Vanitas’ shirt, and he recognized the voice, and it was subtle to him, and he whispered, “Do you want to come back to me?”

**Author's Note:**

> It's kind of weird. I don't really think about these all that much, I write and hope it makes sense. I guess I was also thinking about the time when Vanitas was taken out of Ventus, and that in my head, it would've been a terribly fucked up way of having darkness come out instead of a shape of a boy, and over time, it took its own shape. (I was also thinking about the manga where Vanitas wanted to go back to Ventus.) So in a modern way, they remember their other "life." I don't know...fuck.
> 
> I hoped you enjoyed.
> 
> Comments and/or Kudo's are appreciated.


End file.
